7/9 - Cancun, bus then bus, to the Mexican border... only after a quick bite to eat in Cancun
7/11 - From Chetumal to Belize city, seaside guest house7/12 8:00 Water Taxi out to the Caye Caulker, Belize City the water was gross and nasty and there were no beaches, however as we were on the boat ride the water turned crystal blue and absolutely amazing.
7/13 Caye caulker - took a snorkeling tour out to Hol-Chan, and saw a tons of reefs...we saw barracudas, and big groupers, and lots of pretty coral...OH! We saw tons of nurse sharks and sting rays, and we got to pet them. I was "bite" by one of the nurse sharks - it sucked on my back, because that's how it eats it's food - the worst hickey of my life. We ate some real Caribbean food, and just basically hung out.
7/14 Sean and I went Scuba diving with Frenchies dive shop. It was amazing!!! We saw sea turtles, eels, lobsters, crabs and, lots of beautiful fish and coral. At the first dive he and I were a bit nervous, me more so since it was my first time diving in the ocean. The deepest we dove was 85 ft! the caught a boat out, and then bus into Dangriga over night.
7/15 Punta Gorda, which is the southern most major town in Belize... Met a cool rasta-man who owned a craft shop.
7/16 Bus to one of the Mayan villages. We couldn't find one to Blue Creek, so we took a different one to the junction, where it was a four mile hike to blue creek from there, luckily we hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck for 2 of the miles. Stayed in the guest house, all the kids loved us, and Sean's name, because of Sean Paul. We went for a short hike in the rain forest, went swimming in the river. The current was so strong we didn't have to swim at all, but instead were carried down
Every meal was ate at a different house, they cooked for us.
7/17 More blue creek! We climbed a mountain there 1,104 ft. But what made it hard was the fact that it was straight up!! View was spectacular...we could see all the way to the sea and into Guatemala. We also went hiking and swimming the this huge amazing cave built into the side of the mountain.
7/18 Left Blue Creek at 4:30, but the river was flooded so one by one we were canoed against the current to the other side, bus into Punta Gorda by 7:45am. Boat from Belize into Guatemala to Puerto Barrios. The boat broke down - 2 hour boat ride instead of a 45 minute one. Then into Livingston, Guatemala. Garifuna traditional drumming in the town.
7/19 Rio Dulce - boat tour was hokey. Afterward, caught bus to Finca para Iso - hot springs park. waterfall was hot but the actual water was nice and cool.
7/20 Coban
7/21 Semuc Champey. - beautiful and jaw dropping huge ravenous river that is the 3rd most dangerous in Guatemala, on top of it are 6 different layers of deep pools of water. Most beautiful colors of blue ever. Lots of swimming, and awing.
Jumping off a tall branch - So rose went about 1/4 of the way up, Chris went 1/2, Sean went 3/4...but I climbed all the way up at least 45 feet up in the air...It was awesome!! Surrounding us was just all mountains and huge rainforests, and while floating in the water on my back I could see the little puffy clouds float by through the mountains above me. It was amazing.
7/21 Grutas de Languin, which is a huge cave. Fun spelunking!
7/22 Coban - clubbing/dancing with new local friends.
7/23 Antigua, where we realized a festival and many market days, fun bargaining in Spanish!
7/24 Antigua until Wednesday morning, then we are going to Lake Atilian, more specifically the town of Santiago.
7/26 San Pedro, where it was AMAZING! Surrounding us are tons of volcanoes and mountains. The lake is an absolutely beautiful color of blue. We went swimming and you could look down and see to the bottom. Kind of creepy but still beautiful.
7/27 We climbed the volcano - San Pedro. Bandits?? No, firecrackers!! A big scare, but an amazing site and climb.
7/ 28 Antigua for a night
7/29 Left Antigua for the border into Honduras. Realized we had lost Rose's passport. Paid our way in. Eventually found out that the price should not have been that high, and that Rose should not have been let in at all.
7/30 Copan!
We saw the ruins. They were magnificent and epic.
7/31 Tela - kayaking in Parque Izotpo, saw monkeys! Afterwards, a nice lunch on a white sanded beach in hammocks. Felt like Corona commercial. Rose and I got somewhat sick, and bought random stuff like 7up and these weird crackers.
8/3 Utila - Scuba diving again! (baby eels!)
8/4 San Pedro Sula
8/6 Tegucigalpa - Enjoying the captiol of Honduras!
8/7 Home!
Money: Things were super cheap. Spent around 150 a week. Housing was $2-3 a night, food even less than that. As our first backpacking trip, we greeted this with a warm welcome.
Language: Rose was our main Spanish speaker, me as backup - Chris and Sean could understand about 1/4 of what is being said and can order things, and say no, thank you. Their reading was better than speaking because they spoke French.
Stuff: We were luckily never robbed or directly stolen from, however we did misplace a good amount of stuff.
Weather: We went during rainy season...HA! It mainly rained at night, and maybe once a day, if that, but if it does, it´s only for ten minutes. However, we did get caught in a couple of really heavy soaking showers.
I got most of this stuff from e-mails I had sent home, so some of it might be a bit off, and isn't in nearly as much detail. Anyway, a brief overview of an amazing first trip.
The next post will be some of my favorite photos from the trip!
Weather: We went during rainy season...HA! It mainly rained at night, and maybe once a day, if that, but if it does, it´s only for ten minutes. However, we did get caught in a couple of really heavy soaking showers.
I got most of this stuff from e-mails I had sent home, so some of it might be a bit off, and isn't in nearly as much detail. Anyway, a brief overview of an amazing first trip.
The next post will be some of my favorite photos from the trip!
Sounds like an awesome trip Trish. I'll have to do one like it someday, just need to work on my espanol.
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